Presidential sex scandals plentiful

Anthony Man, Sun Sentinel

When it comes to sex scandals, South Florida author Robert Watson said Tuesday, Bill Clinton wasn't the first or the worst among presidents who've had dalliances before and during their time in the White House.

"There's a long history of these presidential peccadilloes," Watson said. "Whatever Bill Clinton did in the White House, it's mild."

The professor of American Studies at Lynn University in Boca Raton spoke to about 100 people at Broward's Main Library about his latest book, "Affairs of State: The Untold History of Presidential Love, Sex and Scandal."

There's evidence, in the form of written correspondence, that Abraham Lincoln visited a prostitute – before he was married and before he was president. Lest America's greatest president's reputation get too tarnished, Watson said Lincoln fled before anything happened.

John F. Kennedy was a far different story, said Watson, who rated him "the worst dog, I think, probably in history."

Watson said there are weeks when Kennedy was with three different women, not including his wife. He would occasionally have threesomes in the White House pool with two women in their 20s from the secretarial pool, even though, he said, "they did not type." And Kennedy said he'd get headaches if he went more than two days without sex.

It wasn't a secret to Kennedy's wife, Jacqueline, who "knew all about John's philandering."

The Kennedys had separate bedrooms. Watson said a White House maid said in an oral history that she was changing the linens while Jacqueline Kennedy was picking out a suit for her husband. A pair of woman's panties fell out and Kennedy told the maid to get rid of them because they weren't hers.

Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, wasn't much better. He often cheated on his wife, including on trips to their Texas ranch, where he'd take a different secretary each time.

Two aides down the hall in the guest quarters heard the president move down the hall late one night and enter the secretary's room. He later stopped by the aides' room, wearing just a T-shirt, to talk so the next day he could tell his wife Lady Bird he'd been shooting the breeze with the guys.

There's also Grover Cleveland, who fathered a child out of wedlock before he became president. He later married a 21-year-old. And Thomas Jefferson had children with a slave, Sally Hemings.

Watson discounted a notion widely publicized several years ago that Lincoln might have been gay. Watson said the evidence – that Lincoln shared a bed with a man – didn't mean anything since the two men were poor and bed sharing was common at the time.

However, he said, there are plenty of letters providing evidence that Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan, was gay. He lived for years with a senator from Alabama.

Not all presidents are philanderers, Watson said. He said Harry Truman's wife Bess "was the love of his life."

Reta Kuyat, of Fort Lauderdale and Greenberg, Pa., said she wasn't surprised by what she heard. "I think they're all rascals."

Kathy Young, of Fort Lauderdale, said the presidents aren't all that different from everyone else. "I think all men have big appetites."